Plans underway to tackle water shortage in Tema - GWCL

The Tema Regional Chief Manager of Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Abraham Adjei-Kwarteng, has announced that the company has initiated a plan to tackle the perennial water shortage facing customers in the Tema Industrial Area and Free Zones enclave.

He said a project to be funded by the Danish Government and completed in two years, would ensure the construction of a water treatment plant to draw water from the Volta Lake at Avayime through Sege, to the Tema Industrial area.

Abraham Adjei-Kwarteng, who was speaking at GWCL customers’ week celebration in Tema, said the plant would produce about 60,000 cubic meters of water daily.

He said the treatment plant would also serve domestic consumers living along the Central University, Dawhenya, Kpone, and Tema East route.

Mr. Adjei-kwarteng said a technical appraisal committee, involving representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, the Danish Government, and the GWCL has been constituted to look at the various components of the project and the funding.

“With this arrangement, we will cut the Tema industrial area off from the supply coming from Kpong so that the Tematownship, Spintex area, and Accra East can have daily water supply”, he said.

Adjei-Kwarteng stated that from November 1, this year, the GWCL would conduct a consumer survey, to identify consumers not captured on its database.

He noted that though some customers were connected legally were not receiving bills from the company and some had been connected illegally.

Mr. Adjei-Kwarteng said an assessment showed that the Tema Region made 52 percent commercial losses and the company intended to reduce it to 47 percent by 2022.

He urged customers who were not receiving bills from GWCL to voluntarily contact the company to resolve the issue to avoid paying fines.

Mr. Adjei-Kwarteng appealed to residents to report those who engage in illegal water connections to the company for a handsome reward.

He said the company was considering “achieving 100 percent metering of all consumers by the end of the year”.

Mr. Adjei-Kwarteng said the GWCL used the celebration to improve customer satisfaction, by educating staff to view customers as critical partners in the water delivery system.

“We met customers and discussed challenges they had with our services. We gave them an opportunity to peer review our performance. Most of them said they were satisfied with our performance, but a few others wanted us to respond promptly to reports of pipe burst and request for supply to prevent illegal connections,” he said.